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Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky

Has a trillion hours of television a year changed our lives for better or worse?

July 9 2011, 1:01am, The Times

In an average weekend Americans watch 100 million hours of commercials. In an average year the world consumes a trillion hours of television. Only working and sleeping take up more of our day than TV. This should underpin every debate about the internet.

Because there are two great, false, assumptions about socialising online. The first is that it displaces real socialising, conducted in person. The second is that real socialising is always superior. Clay Shirky easily skewers the first. From the 1950s onwards, our pre-internet free time was not, as some now like to assume, spent talking to neighbours over the garden fence or organising fêtes in the village hall. Much of it was spent on the sofa, watching other people socialising on TV.